By Sara Patterson

Assoc. Prof. Adrienne Brown’s groundbreaking research connects the architecture of skyscrapers and the propaganda of home ownership to key transformations in race’s perception. She finds strong evidence to support her argument in political, organizational, and literary sources of the 20th century, with culprits as varied as politicians like Herbert Hoover, organizations such as the National Association of Realtors, and writers like F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Her first book, The Black Skyscraper: Architecture and the Perception of Race (2017), shows the skyscraper’s influence on the shape of modern U.S. cities and the racial perceptions of its residents. For Brown’s insights, her first book won the Modernist Studies Association’s 2018 First Book Award. Her new book, Residential Is Racial: A Perceptual History of Mass Ownership (2024), is equally groundbreaking as she discusses how mass homeownership changed the definition, perception, and value of race in the U.S.

“In both of the books I’ve written, I use The Great Gatsby as an example to understand how race works and why it works the way it does,” said Brown, associate professor in the Departments of English Language and Literature and Race, Diaspora, and Indigeneity and the College, and Faculty Director of Arts + Public Life at UChicago. “Gatsby cannot buy his way into the society in which he yearns to belong. Through literature and cultural objects like The Great Gatsby, we can understand how the perception of race changes over time.”

In Residential Is Racial, Brown addresses reasons why 74 percent of white Americans own their own home compared to 46 percent of Black Americans and traces the origin back to the influential economists, philosophers, and writers during the Enlightenment such as John Locke, Adam Smith, and David Hume. Many of their ideas, though, were reinforced by unwritten rules, regulations, and public opinion in the 20th century. More than 50 years after the Fair Housing Act passed in 1968, the gap in home ownership between the races is wider today than in the late 1960s.

Brown shows how organizations such as the National Association of Realtors and prominent politicians like President Hoover persuaded people to develop a strong attachment to property, especially home ownership. They intentionally sowed the notions that owning property makes individuals good citizens, homes give families the ability to pass down wealth, and home ownership provides a measurement for success. She is less interested, however, in how to fix property and make it more equal than to think of alternatives to the pursuit of freedom and better forms of dwelling.

“Adrienne is a scholar whose work has been hailed not only by literary scholars, but also by historians of architecture, urbanization, and suburbanization,” said Kenneth Warren, the Fairfax M. Cone Distinguished Service Professor and Chair in the Department of English Language and Literature and the College at UChicago. “Her two books, The Black Skyscraper: Architecture and the Perception of Race and The Residential is Racial: The Perception of Mass Homeownership, demonstrate that by trying to understand novels, stories, and films we can understand better how we see and think about the neighborhoods, suburbs, and cities we inhabit.”

Creating an arts ecosystem

In addition to literary and historical sources, Brown acknowledges that Chicago plays a prominent role in Residential Is Racial. It is the headquarters of the National Association of Realtors, and it is the birthplace of the skyscraper. Segregation and redlining are integral to Chicago’s history.

“Chicago shaped the book, and it is a city of communities,” Brown said. “Leading UChicago’s Arts + Public Life since 2020 has made me even more attentive to the way artists are involved in their communities and in Chicago. They are a necessary part of my study of race, space, and aesthetics and its intersections.”

In the summer of 2024, Arts + Public Life (APL) held a celebratory book launch for Residential Is Racial. In preparation, Brown invited artists, dancers, and hip-hop musicians to engage with the text to create works that reimagined space, race, and residency. The dynamic interaction among artists, scholars, readers, and viewers exemplified the vibrant arts ecosystem that APL and Brown have been nurturing.

“The University is fortunate to benefit from Adrienne Brown’s visionary leadership at APL, which has sustained and nurtured vital creative projects on the Arts Block,” said Catriona MacLeod, Deputy Dean in the Arts and Humanities, Senior Advisor to the Provost for the Arts, and the Frank Curtis Springer and Gertrude Melcher Spring Professor in the Departments of Germanic Studies and Art History and the College at UChicago.

Founded in 2011 by UChicago Prof. Theaster Gates, APL is an artistic hub that supports Black and Brown artists, artistic communities, and innovative entrepreneurs. These artists and commercial visionaries create work, produce knowledge, and develop businesses in the Washington Park neighborhood of Chicago, adjacent to the UChicago and UChicago Medicine campus.

An initiative of the University of Chicago, APL has helped support the longstanding artistic legacy of Washington Park, transforming vacant spaces into vibrant cultural destinations, including the Arts Incubator, Green Line Performing Arts Center, L1 Retail Store, and the Arts Lawn, to showcase a range of artistic practices. Established by UChicago Prof. Jacqueline Stewart, SSHMP collects, preserves, and screens home movies. The SSHMP has been used by a host of scholars, contemporary artists, musicians, and DJs to think deeply about Black life and culture.

For Spring Quarter 2025, APL is developing a course for undergraduate students to further share the how and why behind its mission, values, and methods. Brown and APL Deputy Director Alfredo Nieves-Moreno want to introduce a younger generation, helping students better understand their location within one of the most legendary arts districts in the world.

“APL’s programs and activities serve scholars, critics, artists, and the public across the artistic lifecycle, from incubation to preservation,” Brown said. “APL understands its work as supporting a broad arts ecosystem. Arts are not just decoration. Design is a civic intervention that can translate into economic advancement and tighter social fabrics.”

Arts on parade

On Aug. 10, 2024, APL participated in the 95th Bud Billiken Parade—the largest African American parade in the U.S.—by streaming rare footage from its newly digitized Ramon Williams Collection in the SSHMP archives and by showcasing four artistic banners made by members of its Teen Arts Council, one of APL’s youth education programs. The films showed past Bud Billiken Parades from the 1940s to 1960s, including legendary boxer Joe Louis serving as its Grand Marshall in 1948. The teens used embroidery, appliqué, and sewing to create banners to honor the parade’s history of celebrating Black youth and education.

“We centralize access and invitation to the arts and build bridges between to the Washington Park community and UChicago,” Nieves-Moreno said. “Washington Park is a historically redlined neighborhood that has experienced decades of disinvestment and the demographic challenges. Since its foundation in 2011, APL has aspired to be a dynamic hub of exploration, expression, and exchange that centers on people of color and fosters neighborhood vibrancy through the arts on the South Side of Chicago and particularly in Washington Park. This includes foregrounding community engagement, contributing to economic development, and attracting density back to this area.”

During its 13-year history, APL instructors have taught more than 1,000 participants in the youth arts education program, generated more than $1.2 million in economic activity, and engaged more than 75,000 attendees through its community events and programs. The Artists in Residence program is a successful incubator, giving artists the resources and helping them to develop their creativity. Prominent artists, Cecil McDonald and Krista Franklin, among many others, have been part of this signature initiative.

Through its long-term commitment to bringing artistic and economic vibrancy back to Washington Park, APL also serves as a hub in the community for spiritual and structural needs. “We reactivated this historic Arts Block on the South Side,” said Liu Yang, associate director of communications at APL. “We are a cultural destination showcasing the wealth of talent that continues to emerge from the South Side of Chicago.”